Customary disclaimer

The world of Harry Potter entirely belongs, 100%, from top to bottom, head to foot, to J.K. Rowling. This piece of work is just a tribute, created in rapt moments of worship, reverence and/or undying admiration. ***No harm or profit is intended.***

Summary

What if… Harry and his friends received a new offer from the Ministry of Magic, an offer that simply couldn't be refused? Featuring, as a guest star: the ghost of Oscar Wilde (as himself).

Timeline

Takes place right after HBP (AKA Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince).

Nb. I started to work on this story long before The Deathly Hallows came out (trying to get it out of my system before it was released, and failing lamentably). So let's say that this work stands for an alternate version of the very last book.

Pairing

H/HR (with a long-lasting, wicked UST… he he… I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good! J).

*Warnings!*

1. Spoilers from the six first books are (obviously) included here and there (CANON RULES).

2. Small or big references to my favourite books (including, of course, HP), authors, movies, TV shows or songs are disseminated here and there. The attentive readers who will recognize them will be prized with 62.442 extra points! All those references are dutifully listed in the end.

Any review, positive or negative, marriage proposition or death sentence is gladly welcome.

Zanx for reading!

CHAPTER 1 - Transitions

The hottest day of spring was finally drawing to a close. The sun was sinking, blood red, below the skyline, and silence lay over the lawns. Through a pair of iron gates, flanked with columns where stood a couple of winged boars, a mass of turrets loomed against the sky –it was Hogwarts Castle, home of the most famous school in Wizarding Britain.

Behind the gates, a gravelled walk meandered upon a slope, dotted with groups of blackberry bushes, which, for some unexplained reason, grew in more perfection there than anywhere else in the country. The walk was shadowed, on the right, by a thick row of oaks, which shut out a good part of the landscape with their tangled branches, and encircled the Castle and the grounds with a murky-looking shelter.

The Castle faced the walk, a hundred paces from the gates, upon the hilltop. It was very old, very odd, and very irregular and rambling. The windows were uneven; some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday. Great piles of turrets, towers and chimneys rose up behind the gables, grey-looking and moss-grown. For some bewildering reason, the clock-tower was adorned with not two, but three rusty hands. It was so broken down by age that it might have fallen but for the ivy which, gnarling the walls and trailing even over the roofs, damaged and supported it altogether.

A deathly stillness was in the air in this heavy-looking sunset. The light glimmered on the windows, and the lattices were all ablaze with crimson flashes. The silence was so thick that it frightened the birds that had a mind to sing, the fishes that rose to the surface of the ponds and splashed back in the water, and even the frogs that, by this time of the day, usually enjoyed croaking in the ditches.

As the clock over the tower struck eight, a low, moaning wind started to sweep across the land. It tossed the branches hither and thither against the red sky; the leaves rustled with that sinister, shivering motion, an instinctive shudder of the frailest branches, announcing the coming of a storm.

Somewhere on the grounds, a bird started to sing. Though it wasn't the usual singing that you have probably already heard; it was a more like a lament –an unearthly lament of terrible beauty, which filled the air, grew up in intensity and soared through the grounds, echoing deafeningly in the deep purple sky.

As if the disheartening chant had waked them from slumber, the first shadows of night started to darken the land. They looked more like the arms of threatening giants, gesticulating, undulating and drawing fantastical patterns upon the grass. In a few seconds, their fleshless fingers stretched out at full length, swallowing the grounds, creeping up the ramparts until their utmost summit.

The landscape was deserted of any human being, and had been so for more than a few hours. Indeed, in this long June nightfall, there was a threat, greater than the fading light, which had deprived the castle's inhabitants of their usual wanderings. The threat was now lurking in the air, oppressive, so deathlike was the tranquillity of all around; it felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere, under the thick grass, or within that grey and ivy-covered pile of building…

The sensation was, sadly, very much accurate: the spring had come to an end in a dramatic way, turning the Wizarding world upside down. The same morning, Hogwarts' beloved Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, Grand Sorcerer of the Order of Merlin, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, had been laid to rest in a marble white tomb, beside the lake.